Video-on-Demand (VOD) is becoming more popular. After a decade of promising that Video on Demand (VOD) service was just around the corner, the cable television industry has finally started delivering on its promise. Over the past year, digital cable and VOD services have become available in dozens of cities and metropolitan areas throughout the United States and Canada, and VOD subscribers are now able to “time shift” their favorite movies, programs, and sporting events.
VOD services enable a user to effectively “order” movies, sporting events, and other similar broadcast/cable programming at any time. Advanced VOD services, generally referred to as interactive video-on-demand, enable the user to have controls to manipulate the video. The user, for example, may be able to fast forward, rewind, replay, pause, and otherwise adjust the experience as with an improved digital recorder device.
In general, these VOD services are available to all subscribers of a given digital cable service. The VOD services usually make a select number of movies available at any given time. These movies can be ordered at any time and watched immediately without the time-slot restrictions of traditional pay-per-view channel movies. Additional television programming can also be available using VOD.